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I've experienced a lot of depression in my life and it feels fairly obvious that the chemical imbalance state -- the feeling of extreme torpor, lack of motivati
by ajkjk 4y ago
I've experienced a lot of depression in my life and it feels fairly obvious that the chemical imbalance state -- the feeling of extreme torpor, lack of motivation to do things, negativity about future prospects, and inability to enjoy anything -- is well downstream of the root cause, which is a sort of "software problem" that looks like this:
The problem is that there is a mis-alignment between the reality of daily life and the software my brain has constructed for handling and processing daily life. The software doesn't give good results on the inputs: for instance, not having a good script for what to do with time to feel happy or like myself, or not knowing how to navigate social situations to get positive and fulfilling results. The result is the brain gives up on the software and stops trying because it's become aware it's not working but doesn't have any better ideas.
If I was programming my brain, a better strategy would obviously be to switch to "explore" mode and start rapidly iterating on the software to try to find something that works better. But evidently the brain doesn't work that way, and the negative feedback from real life causes it to slip into depression and torpor.
So there's a chemical imbalance, yeah, but it's not the root cause. If a "chemical disposition to depression" is anything, it's this tendency to give up on the software instead of iterating on it.
(IRL, "iterating on the software" looks like a person making big changes in their life: quitting jobs, moving, leaving relationships, picking up new hobbies.. you know, all of the stuff people advise you to do to get out of a funk.
"Changing variables until something works".)
SSRIs, at least the ones I've taken, seem to work by reducing the severity of the (bad results from software) -> (downregulate energy levels) step; in particular, the reduce the amount of fixation my brain gives on the bad results and makes me not worry so much about them, which -- presumably -- reduces the amount of the downregulation that results, which prevents slipping into the extreme-depressive state where you have no willpower to try anything new that might help.
In particular I observe that my natural tendency is for negative social interactions to trigger a negative feedback loop of self-doubt and frustration that spirals out of control, and Lexapro seems to reduce the coefficient on the feedback loop so that it dissipates instead of amplifies.
(I'm not all that confident in this model but it's my best guess so far. I'll also add that a lot of my depressive states seem to have social anxiety as the main trigger, so it might be that this is phenomenologically quite different from sorts of depression that are, I guess, "intrinsic", rather than caused by something else.)
- fellow_human 4y agoTry psychodynamic therapy, it works to treat the root causes of depression, not offerring a magic chemical imbalance pill that makes you dissassociate from the root causes of sufferring.
- ajkjk 4y agoI didn't mention this above, but I've largely solved these problems (this understanding is what I concocted in the process of figuring out how to solve them). For me the root cause is often anxieties and solving those anxieties makes significant progress on solving the depression. (Also, there is another node in the system worth mentioning: the tendency for "vortexing" ie addictive/obsessive behavior that turns off the brain's analysis / awareness, used as an escape mechanism to avoid contending with a hostile reality. In my case, video game addiction. Vortexing fixes one in the anxious-avoidant state, and realizing one is vortexing, aka, operating in a very small subspace of thought-space, can break out of a depressive spiral. It's a whole thing that I don't know exactly how to put into words, but I feel like I've made lots of progress on it and have the tools to solve it the rest of the way now.)
- fellow_human 4y agoIt's funny your term "vortexing" has an actual name in the world of psychology, it's called dissociation. Anyway well done for realizing these things, it's taken me years of continued therapy to keep making progress on mental health. I only brought it up because I believe everyone can benefit from therapy. :)
- q7xvh97o2pDhNrh 4y agoI've been down in the hole too; I dig this metacognitive framework. Anecdotally, I've noticed one other interesting dimension that could fit nicely into your framing. As I understand your comment, it proposes a feedback-loop model a bit like this, where the brain observes reality and makes decisions about it. Those decisions affect reality -- which in turn affects the brain's state, it's ability to make decisions, and the very decisions it makes: |----------->-----------| | | reality brain | | |-----------<-----------| I agree with your idea of the "exploration" mode. (Alas, if only I could switch my brain's modes as easily as I can in vim.) Having been down low myself (and still being there in some ways), the question then comes down to: how do you get the brain to actually get up and start exploring? How can you bring a common-sense project-management approach to your own life, brainstorming ideas and prioritizing new frontiers to explore, when the brain keeps wanting to wander into a black hole of regret and rumination? One notion I'm toying with is to decouple the right side of the diagram further. In this sense, I think "psychological resilience" means essentially the brain's ability to maintain its own internal state independent of reality -- in more practical terms, the brain can remain confident of its own ability to operate in reality, even as reality throws curveballs and does all kinds of wacky stuff (like, say, a job that becomes unfulfilling while the world is going through global pandemics and a volatile stock market). |----------->----------->-----------| | | | reality internal decision-making | emotional state brain | | | |-----------<-----------<-----------| I think the mindfulness crowd would call this "equanimity" or "serenity." The Stoics are in a similar metacognitive neighborhood; Seneca wrote about it [1] more eloquently than I can: > External goods are of trivial importance and without much influence in either direction: prosperity does not elevate the sage and adversity does not depress him. For he has always made the effort to rely as much as possible on himself and to derive all delight from himself. It's all still way easier said than done. I have no illusions that I'm even close to being a "sage," in Seneca's definition. But remembering that there are more pieces to the puzzle -- more variables to toy with, more factors to optimize, smaller steps I can take -- helps, sometimes, at least for me. [1]: https://www.themarginalian.org/2017/05/02/seneca-consolation-to-helvia/ https://www.themarginalian.org/2017/05/02/seneca-consolation...